Jordan steps up curbs on political dissent, Human Rights Watch says

AMMAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Jordanian authorities have within the final 4 years intensified persecution and harassment of political opponents and atypical residents utilizing a string of legal guidelines to silence essential voices, Human Rights Watch mentioned on Sunday.

Authorities used imprecise legal guidelines to detain, interrogate and harass journalists, political activists, members of political events and unbiased commerce unions, and their relations, and restricted their entry to primary rights to quash political dissent, the rights group mentioned in a report.

“There may be an pressing want to handle the downward spiral on rights we’re seeing in Jordan at present,” mentioned Lama Fakih, Center East director at Human Rights Watch.

‘Sustaining stability’ can by no means be a justification for abusing individuals’s rights and shutting house that each society wants,” Fakih added.

There was no quick response from the federal government to a Reuters request for touch upon the HRW report.

The New-York primarily based rights group mentioned it investigated 30 instances between 2019 and 2022 by which authorities used overly broad felony defamation provisions to arrest and cost residents for peacefully expressing political views on social media platforms or in public gatherings.

The Jordanian authorities has additionally dissolved political events and independently elected commerce unions, HRW mentioned.

Scores of activists have been arrested in recent times over feedback on social media.

Staunch U.S. ally King Abdullah had known as on the intelligence companies to restrict actions to nationwide safety and preventing terrorism, in a rebuke to the company with a pervasive affect in public life.

Politicians say the monarch faces challenges from a conservative institution to push for wider financial and political reforms.

Jordanian rights activists have beforehand accused the federal government of utilizing draconian powers underneath emergency legal guidelines enacted to curb COVID-19 as an excuse to restrict civic and political rights.

The federal government not too long ago mentioned a newly enacted political events regulation earlier this yr lifted restrictions on peaceable opposition activism and was a transfer in the direction of higher democratization.

Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Enhancing by Frank Jack Daniel

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